Furniture antiskid device



Aug. 22, 1950 H. w. HAUSER FURNITURE ANTISKID DEVICE Filed March 22, 1948 Patented Aug. 22, 1950 FURNITURE ANTISKID DEVICE Henry W. Hauser, Wauwatosa, Wis., assi nor to Jonto Products Incorporated, Wauwatosa, Wis., a corporation of Wisconsin Application March 22, 1948, Serial No. 16,371

6 Claims.

The present invention relates generally to improvements in the art of retaining furniture in preselected position, and relates more particularly to improvements in the construction and operation of floor-engaging antiskid devices adapted to be utilized with diverse articles of furniture.

A primary object of the present invention is to provide an improved furniture antiskid device which is extremely simple, compact and durable in construction, which may be readily manufactured at low cost, and which is moreover highly efiicient in operation.

Various types of devices for preventing undesirabl misplacement of furniture and resultant marring of the furniture or of adjacent walls have heretofore been proposed. Some of these prior devices merely assumed the form of cupshaped receiving members, either loosely associated with the floor or attached thereto by means of screws or the like, and adapted to loosel receive the legs of the furniture. However, it has been found that these devices were not entirely satisfactory since they did not effectively retain the furniture in position unless they were anchored securely to the floor, thus resulting in undesirable marring of the floor and also restricting use to heavy article of furniture which are not intended for periodic rearrangement.

plate-lik member having one end thereof adapted to engage the wall near the floor and with a recess formed in the opposite end for loosely receiving a leg of furniture to positively space the same from the wall. These devices. however. have also proved objectionable in that they were unsightly, interfered with cleaning, and were very restricted in application, being useful only in instances wherein the article of furniture was to be located near a wall and in alinement therewith. Still other devices have been proposed which were directly rigidly attachable to the legs of the furniture, but such devices obviously necessitated undesirable marring f the furniture and became an integral part thereof and also did not effectively eliminate displacement of the furniture to which they were applied.

It is, therefore, a more specific object of my present invention to provide an improved furniture antiskid device which obviates the disadvantages and objectionable features of prior structures intended for like purpose.

Another specific object of this invention is to provide an improved device for retaining furni- Another type of device heretofore proposed consisted of an elongated flat and rigid ture or the like in a preselected position, and which may be readily applied and effectively utilized with any article of furniture having legs without necessitating attachment thereto.

Another specific object of the invention is to provide an improved furniture antiskid device which may be quickly and easily applied to diverse articles of furniture by a novice without detracting from the appearance thereof and without danger of marring either the furniture or the floor.

Another specific object of my invention is to provide an improved unitary furniture antiskid device which may be readily manufactured of availabl sheet material with the aid of punches and dies, and which may be effectively utilized to retain diverse articles of furniture at any desired locality within a room.

Still another specific object of my present invention is to provide an improved furniture antiskid device which is neat in appearance, which is exceedingly compact and does not interfere with cleaning, and which ma be quickly loosely applied to the legs of furniture to retain the. same in a preselected position.

An additional specific object of the present; invention is to provide an improved antiskid device for furniture comprising, a floor-engaging; socket adapted to loosely receive the leg of an, article of furniture, a floor gripping pad disposed remote from the socket, and a resilient connec--- tion between the socket and pad adapted to be; stressed so as to apply gripping pressure to the pad when a furniture leg bears upon the socket.

These and other specific objects and advantages of the improvement will be apparent from the following detailed description.

A clear conception of the several features constituting my present invention, and of the mode of constructing, applying and of utilizing furniture antiskid devices embodying the improvements, may be had by referring to the drawing accompanying and forming a part of this specification wherein like reference characters designate the same or similar parts in the various views.

Fig. 1 is a side view of a furniture antiskid device constructed in accordance with my invention;

Fig. 2 is a top view of the improved device; and

Fig. 3 is a front and side perspective view of the device, showing the same applied to a leg of a chair or the like and in active floor-gripping condition. 1

while the invention has been shown and described herein as embodied in a specific form of the device especially adapted for application to and utilization with the rear legs of a chair, it is not my desire or intent to thereby unnecessarily restrict the scope or utility of the improved features.

Referring to the drawing, the improved furniture antiskid device shown therein as embodying the invention comprises, in general, a floorengaging socket 6 normally rearwardly inclined relative to the floor, illustrated by the numeral 5 in Fig. l; a compressible floor-grippingpad 1 disposed remote from and rearwardly of the socket 6; and an inverted U-shaped leaf spring 8 having one leg 9 thereof formed integral with the upper rear end of the socket B and the. others leg I coacting with the gripping pad .1 and adapted to be stressed so as to compress and apply gripping pressure to the pad I when a furniture leg il bears uponthe socket 6.

To provide a unitary assemblage, the floor-engaging leg-receiving socket G and the integral inverted U-shaped spring 8 may be formed of a single piece of sheet-metal or-the like with the aid of punches and dies, and the compressible floor gripping pad 'I may be formed of rub-oer molded directly to the lower end of the leg ID. The inverted U-shaped spring 8 should, of course. be resilient but must also be suffic'iently rigid so as to normally maintain the socket in aninclinedposition relative to the floor-5 untilpressure is placed on the socket 6 through the leg ll received thereby. Thesocket E is preferablycupshaped with the bounding side walls 12 being formed by either drawing the metal along the edge portion upwardly or by forming upturned flanges with the aid of punches and dies, and the compressible gripping pad may be provided with transverse grooves H3 in the lower floor: engaging face thereof to provide for more-effective gripping action. The inclination of. the leg receivin-g socket 6 may, of course, be varied depending upon the resilience of the connecting springqa and the weight of the article to be. received by the socket, and the generally U-shapedspring 8 may likewise be varied considerably-but should provide a connection between thersocketfi and the gripping pad 53 adapted to be stressed upon application of weight to the socket 6 so as to com-a press and apply gripping pressure to the pad ,1.

In actual use of the device in positioning .a chair, one of the improved devices is utilized with each of the rear legs H of the chair, and, it is merely necessary to lift the -chair so that the 5 rear legs I I are off of the ground and then place each leg within thesocket 6 of one of the im-! proved devices, the gripping pad 1 being located rearwardly of the chair. With thelegs ll of the chair received by the socket 6 of the improved antiskid device, the socket 6 is still disposed ata slight angle to the floor by the rigidity of the leaf spring 8; and when a person sits on the chair, the socket 6 will be forced toward thefloor5 and approximately flush therewith thereby causing the spring 3 to be stressed so as to compress. and apply gripping pressure to the pad through-the rear spring leg ID to preventskidding or displacement of the chair.

From the foregoing detailed descriptiongitiis apparent that my present invention provides-.ian. improved furniture antiskiddevice which isextremely simple, durable andxcompacti intcone struction and which is moreover highly efficient in actual use. The improved devices-.maybeeffectively utilized with any articles of furniture having legs which are receivable in the inclined sockets; and while particular reference has been made to use of the improved devices with a chair, such devices have been successfully utilized to retain davenports, tables, beds and other articles of furniture in preselected positions. The improved antiskid device may obviously be quickly and easily applied to the legs i l of the desired articles ,of furniture without necessity of anchoring the same to the floor 5 and without need for marring the'furniture 'by attaching the same thereto and these devices may also be readily removed at any time without the aid of any tools. Since the furniture legs loosely engage these devices and since the devices are not anchored to the floor, the furniture nmaysbe moved from time to time and re-positioned and the application of the improveddevice is highly flexible and does not necessitate positioning the furniture near the wall of the room. The improved antiskid devices are extremely compact and do not interfere with cleaning and vacuuming of the floor and these devices likewise do not detract from .the appearance of the. furniture to which they are applied. Thecsocket 6 and spring 8 may, as hereinabove set forth, be readily manufactured at low cost of available materials with the aid of punches and dies in an obvious manner and the floor gripping pads i may be molded directly to the leg ID of the spring 8. These devices efiectively prevent furniture displacement and have, in fact, proven highly successful and satisfactory in actual use.

It. should be understood that it is not desired or intended to limit this invention to the exact details of construction or to the precise mode of use herein shown and described for variousmodifications within the scope'of the appended claims may occurto persons skilled in the art to which this invention pertains.

I claim:

1. Anantiskid device for furniture comprising, a floor-engaging socket adapted to loosely receive the leg. of an article of furniture, said socket being y inclined relative to the floor, a floor gripping; pad disposed remote from said socket, and a connection 'betweenlthe upper end of said inclined socket and'said pad adapted to transmit gripping pressure to said pad when a furniture leg bears upon said socket.

2. An antiskid device for-furniture comprising, a floor-engaging socket adapted to loosely receive theleg of an article of furniture, said. socket being normally inclined relative to the floor; a floor gripping pad disposed remote from'said socket, and a leaf spring connection between said socket and pad adapted to be'stressed so as to apply grippingzpressure to thepad when a fu'rnl ture leg bearsupon said socket.-

3. An antiskid device for'furnlture compr1sing, a fiOOY-Bllgaging socket adapted to loosely receiver-the leg of an article of furniture,.said socket being normally inclined relative to' the floor, a floor gripping. pad disposed remote from said socket, and a resilientconnection between said socket and pad adapted to bestressedsoas to apply gripping pressure to the pad when a furniture leg'bears upon said socket.

4. An antiski-d device forifurniture comprising, afloor-engaging socket adapted to loosely *receivev the .1eg2of an article of furniture said socket being normally inclined' relative to the floor, a floor grippingvpad disposed'remote from-said socket, and an inverted U-shaped' leaf spring having oneleg coacting with said" socket andme other leg coacting with said pad and adapted to be stressed so as to apply gripping pressure to the ad when a furniture leg bears upon said socket.

5. An antiskid device for furniture comprising, a floor-engaging socket adapted to loosely receive the leg of an article of furniture, said socket being normally inclined relative to the floor, a floor gripping pad disposed remote from said socket, and an inverted U-shaped leaf spring having one leg formed integral with the upper end of said inclined socket and the other leg coasting with said pad and adapted to be stressed so as to apply gripping pressure to the pad when a furniture leg bears upon said socket.

6. An antiskid device for furniture comprising, a floor-engaging member adapted to receive the leg of an article of furniture, said member being normally inclined relative t the floor, a, floor HENRY W. HAUSER.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,445,726 Soros Feb. 20, 1923 2,224,266 Leheny Dec. 10, 1940 2,281,684 Fijus May 5, 1942 2,423,659 Rabe July 8, 1947 

